What did I ever do to you or anyone else? <sob> 
UK private contributions towards disaster relief now £50 million ($96 million). This is unprecedented.
Also - unlike in America - these are not tax-deductable. However if the donator signs a form the government will add 28p for every pound - which is lost tax revenue for the government.
I can’t remember anything gripping the country like this. I was in the bank on Thursday and hordes of people (mostly white Londoners - not people from the affected area) were patiently queuing to make their donations. It was rather moving.
As I said above, I work in an Oxfam bookshop and for the last few days we have been very, very busy with people making contributions . Most are willing to fill in the Gift-Aid form even though it takes a minute or so to do. That extra 28% makes all the difference.
You are serious I take it?! First of all because you use the language you do I assume most of your posts are expressions of anger toward an unexisting people which you would like to convince everyone are real. Second I am and everyone I talked to is very compassionate towards these poor souls BUT when it happens in your own back yard sympathy runs a more emotional course. May I proove that. Is your mother still alive? If so the day she dies I may ask you "one person dies and you are falling apart -where were you the day that club fire in B.A. killed 174-you just don’t give a sh–. Now let’s answer the hypocrisy in the post (trust me I have found the same in some things I have said). Have you ever been guilty of saying “I don’t know why we are doing this or that in that country when people in our own country are starving”. Now read your message again. This is my friend a crossroad. You may call me a name and continue to stay the course or you may say “this guy makes sense” and that my friend is the beginning of a brand new and exciting adventure.
Ah. It is what it is. Noblesse oblige just keeps most Americans from saying it out loud most of the time.
Only a question of when.
According to these guys, the earthquake and tsunami were engineered in an American conspiracy to obtain Indonesian oilfields and test new environmental weapons.
Entropy
Life
Natural selection
Human nature
everything that’s wrong with the world
I saw the overly simplistic bitching and moaning by Michel Chovsomethingorother, but I didn’t see anything about the oilfield conspiracy or weapon testing…where was that?
I linked do the wrong stupid article – there’re so many so many stupid to choose from. I hope you’ll be mollified when you learn that I’m kicking myself in the face as you read this. http://debatt.passagen.se/show.fcgi?category=3500000000000014&conference=10500000000000349&posting=19500000002103273
Here’s some other bullshit conspiracy stuff: http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/12/307042.shtml
Haven’t read much, it’s simply too idiotic.
Ugh. That is drivel to the nth degree. I remember this thread in GQ about the amount of energy it takes to stop a hurricane. I would imagine it takes about the same amount of energy to create a cyclone and in favorable conditions…but chances are, there is already a cyclone developing there in the Indian Ocean, so why would we bother if we were actually that evil?
The energy to induce an earthquake of that magnitude would also be too great, but as I recall, it was thought that triggering earthquakes (hypothetically) in most cases helps reduce the stress of a fault, thereby reducing the chance of larger quakes, not increasing the chances of larger quakes. That conspiracy doesn’t hold water at all. They need a link to here…pronto.
Oh, BTW, stop kicking yourself. 
We all know that the fundamental Islamic Terrorists have raised billions of dollars to fight the “enemy” whether it be the US or Israel and others. Not one word have I heard about these people donating part of their killer money to help their brethren.
But accuse the US and other wealthy nations of not spending enough??? What critical thinkers you people are.{sarcasm}
The reason the OP makes no sense is that disaster relief of this magnitude can’t be bought, it has to be DONE. You can’t just write the people in Sri Lanka a check, you have to load food and water and whatnot into an airplane, fly to Sri Lanka, land somewhere, somehow get a truck or a helicopter, load the food and water and whatnot into the truck or helicopter and drive to every village that has been affected, then do the same thing over again and again and again and again and again. A few months from now cash donations will help. But today and this week and this month, cash donations are worthless. If I gave a million dollars today it wouldn’t save a single solitary person from dying of dehydration or exposure or untreated injuries or disease. Those people will still die, and there’s nothing my money or any amount of money can do about it.
The US military and the Australian military have people and ships and aircraft in place to actually do the rescue work. Pretty much nobody else does, no matter how much money they have. Even if you charter jets, fill them with food, and fly to the affected areas it will still do no good. The food and whatnot will just sit there at the airports, since there isn’t any way to transport the goods to the villages, except at a trickle.
So the OP is essentially completely misguided, divisive, and blind to logistical reality.
[tongue-in-cheek]
After all, if we can declare war on such things as drug abuse and terrorism, why shouldn’t we also declare war on shifting tectonic plates? I’m not at all sure that the former two “wars” are more winnable than the latter.
Let’s see if we can get a nice fat contract for Halliburton; then it’ll be sure to fly…
[/tongue-in-cheek]
Oh, yeah, the OP. It’s been thoroughly debunked, methinks. The world’s response to the tragedy has been exemplary.
Speaking for the charity I work for ( Oxfam ) money is more important than donated goods at this time. When Money is donated here in the UK it is immediately transferred to the affected countries and used to buy such things as building materials and other essential supplies. One aspect of relief work that Oxfam specialises in is the provision of clean drinking water. With the money donated the necessary equipment can be shipped over there very quickly or bought locally . People have been offering us clothes and blankets but at this time money is more important.
This gives more details :- http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/emergencies/country/asiaquake/update.htm
Hmmm. Today Doctors Without Borders said they didn’t need any more money at this time. The N.Y. Times reported, I think yesterday, that damage even to the localized economies might have a “relatively marginal economic effect” (this isn’t completely unrelated to the fact that some of the local economies, overall, were pretty marginal to begin with, admittedly). Also saw a story on tourists returning to Phuket.
U.S. gov’t aid/pledges as of today are at $350 million. Private U.S. contributions are another $200 million.
To tweak the OP, are we approaching the point where we’ll have more aid than can usefully be spent on “tsuanmi relief” or is needed to restore the status quo ante? Has anyone seen an article on what the “total cost” will be? Arguably (and again, because of the always-low standard of living for many victims) restoring their prior lifestyles might not cost anywhere near as much as rebuilding a handful of condos on some North Carolina barrier island (putting aside whether idiots who aren’t subsistence fishermen should be building on barrier islands).
I’m sure that some of the short-term bottlenecks that are leading people to say there is enough aid in the pipeline for now do not mean that infrastructure won’t need rebuilding. But I wonder if there is any risk that there will end up being a surplus of funds, beyond that which is needed specifically for redressing tsunami-caused damage, whereupon aid agencies will have to explain to donors why using it on “alleviating endemic poverty” or “other worthy programs in the region” or “building less tsunami-vulnerable communities” is an equally compelling use of money generated by compassion for tsunami victims.
I’m not saying it’s not. Just based on past developments, though (Red Cross taking a beating for using “9/11” donations on other programs), it seems to be human nature for donors to want their catastrophe-induced donations to go to ameliorating the specific scenes/victims they saw on television, and not to other worthy, but less acute, situations.
Maybe it’s a non-issue if there is a long-term population of displaced persons who will cost hundreds of millions to support. Don’t know how the math will work out (partly because we don’t know how much the West will eventually end up pouring in). I do agree that the kneejerk OP notion of U.S. stinginess has been largely pushed aside by facts on the ground.
OK Lemur866, Knorf and Huerta88. You are all missing the point. Now, please listen – and listen good.
Today, after the disaster has already hit, you are impressed by the overwhelming flow of emergency aid and supply of bandages to heal the wounds of thousands of people. Rather than thousands of wounded, we could have reduced the number of victims significantly, had we had the foresight to assist in providing preventive measures in these countries prior to the occurrence of such natural disasters.
Just in case you do not understand what I am saying, the following is some of the things we could have done long before 2004 to reduce the destructive effect of this tsunami:
- Incorporating disaster vulnerability assessment, plans and implementation
- Investment in development process to reduce human/property vulnerability
- Investment /aid to overcome resource constraints prior to natural disasters
- Building up the infrastructure and increasing the countries’ resilience to disaster
- Establishing frameworks for natural disaster preparedness and damage mitigation
- Training programs and policies for implementation of disaster reduction strategies
- Establishing infrastructures and measures for relief-management
- Implementing community programs on all aspects of disaster preparedness
- Setting up infrastructure for disaster preparedness and relief operations
- Set up early warning systems to evacuate the people from danger zones before any harm is sustained
- Help identify and allocate hazard-free areas for industrial and urban developments in 3rd world countries and thus assist in the most effective way to deal with seismic or volcanic disasters, with high gains at relatively low costs.
- Conduct risk assessment and hazard mapping to delineate areas vulnerable to natural hazards and the frequency, intensity, impact, return period etc. of each natural hazard.
- Perform comprehensive vulnerability analysis for disaster-prone areas, incorporating past disaster events, the socio-economic conditions of the population living in the area, and inventories of major structures of public concern.
- Prepare/review earthquake-resistant design codes for buildings and other engineering structures and for their enforcement.
- Provide aid for Low-cost housing programs, incorporating disaster-resistant construction techniques. Traditional building techniques that have disaster-resistant components should be encouraged. Critical facilities, such as medical and public health facilities, drinking water supplies and communications facilities, should be established on sites least likely to be affected by such hazards as volcanic eruptions, landslides or tsunamis.
- Construct health facilities to withstand the effects of a natural disaster, including geology-related disasters, and are equipped so that they can provide basic assistance following emergencies of all kinds.
- Establish or upgrade observational equipment and networks to monitor the hazard properly and promptly disseminate warnings through the alert system.
- Implement environmental planning and structural measures necessary to avoid or mitigate losses caused by natural disasters
- Create institutional mechanisms in the 3rd world countries to provide necessary controls and responsibilities to cope with disaster situations
And finally, poverty is one of the major underlying causes for the inappropriate types and poor quality of building materials, substandard planning and building code regulations and, most importantly, weak enforcement of safety codes and provisions, which eventually lead to a high number of casualties when natural disasters strike.
Now. Lemur866, **Knorf ** and Huerta88, I suggest you start thinking about the above as aids that should have been extended to the tsunami-afflicted countries for the past decades. No need to self-congratulate yourself for overflow of bandaid, after the disaster has struck.
Considering that an ounce of prevention is worth tons of disaster-relief you are now so proud of, who is essentially completely misguided, divisive, blind and debunked?
Well, I congratulate you on abandoning your untenable OP (which you’ll recall was premised on the notion that the West was only sending “a few million dollars”). Now that it’s evident that it is going to be more like “many billions of dollars in a short period of time,” that’s looking pretty minatory and, well, completely wrong.
And, you’ve stopped comparing the response to the tsunami to the response to 9/11, now that you’ve realize it may well rival or exceed same before all is over.
Instead, you’ve completely shifted the goal posts and started faulting the West for not preventing the tsunami devestation (and hey, why stop there: they didn’t cure global poverty either, you censoriously tell us).
Interestingly, your OP contains not a scintilla of discussion of prevention as opposed to response (its sole stated subject).
We can’t read your mind and tell that this is (you now apparently imply) what your OP really meant to focus on (now that you realize your IRL OP was embarrassingly off-base).
So: What you really want to do is start a new OP, I think. You might want to entitle it “Monday Morning Quarterbacking” or “Moving The Goalposts.” But don’t blame us for responding to the topic you actually raised in this thread.
As a preview of your new and very distinct “Why Didn’t The West Prevent The Tsunami Deaths In The East Indies?” post, will you share with us what you were doing ca., say, Dec. 24 to prevent Indian Ocean tsunami deaths? After all, the danger was as plain as the nose on your face, right, and there were tons of readily available solutions just begging to have resources (which apparently are not limited) thrown at them.
Actually, the comparison still stands for the following reasons:
One was “too little, too late”, the other was an overwhelming and incredible allocation of resources and mobilization. One can also argue that the 9/11 disaster could have been prevented had we pulled out of Saudi Arabia (which we didn’t, but which we’ll have to at the end, which could also be the reason why we are now in Iraq). The death and destruction of the tsunami could have also been much lower, had we made the overwhelming and incredible post 9/11 allocation of resources, in the pre-tsunami years, by truly providing aid and investments in the development of the 3rd world.
As for a “scintilla of discussion of prevention”, see the last sentence in post number 66 above.
I don’t think my OP was off-base. Here is why:
Consider what we could have done/spent for the tsunami-effected Asian and other 3rd world countries (in terms of economic development and disaster prevention, etc.) during the past 20 years. Now compare that effort/money with what we have and will spend invading Iraq. It is up to you how you’d like to measure the Return on Investment.
Within my limited means, I have been and continue to be an active and vocal critic of the US Foreign Policy. I believe the danger in the increasing gap between the rich and the poor is as plain as the nose on your face. And I do not believe the trickle down charitable actions during a trauma is the answer. While I do not have the resources to personally contribute to the development of the 3rd world, I do pay taxes and I do vote. Beyond that, I try to provide a “Wake up call” service. 
Underlining mine.
Hey…you’re right…this is a wake up call.
A wake up call for all 3rd world countries to sign over their sovereignty to the U.S. so we can implement, oversee and accomplish ALL of these things that you point out. Wouldn’t want the host country and its people interfere with providing their ideal “safe” country since we know what’s best for them. It’s a big enough job that still isn’t thoroughly perfected here in our own country let alone any other country as a matter of fact, but hey…just turn over your countries to U.S. and we’ll upgrade them…“free of charge”…sign here.
Let’s start with Mexico and work our way outward… :rolleyes:
Can you please remind me how many hurricanes hit Florida last year that caused great damage and some loss of life (and why do we STILL have people willing to live there in the first place?), despite all of these “vast resources” that we have at our disposal to avoid loss of life and property? Maybe Florida shouldn’t be inhabited at all…what about the rest of the Gulf Coast? Tornadoes? Get those folks outta the Plains. Avalanches? Get them out of thar mountains. Earthquakes? Don’t build and live in California.
As a country that still can’t keep every corner of our country safe from natural disasters, can you really look us in the eye and tell us that we can bring a country like India with 3.5 times the population safe in every little pocket of that country? Should they crowd in the “safe places” of their country, away from cyclones and tsunamis? Wouldn’t epidemics likely result from overcrowding these safe places. What should we do about that? What can we do about that?
See where I’m going with this?